As smart devices such as smart phones and tablets become ubiquitous and prevalent, it becomes desirable that the user interface and experience of such device can be extended beyond the physical bound of the smart devices. If the smart device serves as one of the senses of the human body, it can act as an environment extender that can greatly extend the physical boundary of the user.
Smart devices come from different vendors and are loaded with different operating systems (OS), such as Android, iOS and Linux. It becomes a big challenge for the extender to be able to work with different smart devices, under different OS and/or environment.
The concept of the environment extender is not new. It has been limitedly realized by Apple TV and Android Miracast. While in Apple TV, the audio and video content of an iPhone or iPad can be mirrored to an Apple TV settop box that is hooked up to a high definition TV (HDTV). The audio and video content are streamed from the smart device, iPhone or iPad, to the HDTV. The Apple TV can also receive selected media file format, such mp4, mp3 or jpeg, from the smart device and play on the HDTV. In this case, Apple TV serves as an environment extender. It can either “mirror” the smart device environment on to the HDTV through Apple TV, or “stream certain content” from the smart device to the HDTV.
In the case of Miracast on Android platform, the smart device environment is “mirrored” to the HDTV through an Android settop box. The Android settop box can also received “certain streamed content” from the smart device and play it on the HDTV.
While both platforms can “mirror” and “stream”, it is limited to the smart device, as the transmitter, running under the same OS with the settop box, as the receiver. Furthermore, the file format support is limited. It is usually limited to just mp4, mp3 and jepeg files.
It is usually difficult, if not impossible, to transmit content from one smart device to another receiver that is running under a different OS. Examples are: transmitting from an iDevice to an Android receiver; transmitting from an Android device to an Apple receiver such as an Apple TV.